CSU vets tracking animal health

Monday 5 Sep 2016

Charles Sturt University (CSU) scientists are
lending their expertise to a new national project to collect information about
the health of dogs, cats and wildlife across Australia.

Known as Veterinary Companion Animal Surveillance
System or VetCompass, the voluntary project will collect data on animal health from
veterinary practices to allow further studies into the frequency and risk of disease
in the Australian animal population.

VetCompass is led by the University of Sydney in collaboration
with the Royal Veterinary College in the United Kingdom (UK) and the six other
Australian universities involved in educating veterinary scientists, including
CSU.

Dr Combs said, "When pet owners take their dog or cat
to the vet, we'd like them to ask their vet to opt-in to VetCompass.

"The
clinical records of animals, such as gender, age, breed and health problems, are
extracted from veterinary practices using the VetCompass software and collated
in a central database for research.

"Each
animal is given a unique code to allow researchers to follow an animal or
treatment over time, but the animal owner and the pet cannot be identified. The
only owner information collected is a postcode."

Professor
Raidal hopes the system can be used to better understand disease patterns in
wildlife,

"Injured
or sick wild animal are often taken to local vets but the information on why
they go to vets is often hard to collate.

"VetCompass
provide an important way to aid the collection of information on what diseases
are affecting native animals," Professor Raidal said.

CSU
will also be involved in research into the use of antibiotics and the
prevalence of antibiotic resistance in companion animals.

Dr
Combs said, "We are all familiar with the overuse of antibiotic and the risk of
multi-resistant 'superbugs' with humans.

"Companion
animals also take antibiotics and can carry resistant bacteria. There is also
the potential they can spread them to people.

"At
this stage we know very little about the scale of this problem. VetCompass has
the potential to help answer some of these questions."

All
research conducted using this system will be freely available on the VetCompass
website, to ensure that the entire community benefits from the project.

VetCompass
was initially established in the UK in 2009 by the University of Sydney's
Professor Paul McGreevy. It grew to involve more than 450 clinics and 4 million
animals. Research
projects in the UK have targeted pet disorders such as kidney disease,
epilepsy, pyoderma or skin infection and cancer.

VetCompass
is a voluntary project relying on the support of Australian veterinarians and
pet owners.